Latest attack on a German politician stokes concern ahead of elections
German politics is getting violent. This week, Berlin’s top economic official was attacked, sustaining head and neck injuries. A 74-year-old man was later arrested. Although the motive is unknown, it was the latest episode in a rising tide of political violence as Germany gears up for European Parliament elections this summer.
Last week, the top European Parliament candidate of the governing Social Democrat Party was beaten unconscious in the eastern city of Dresden while campaigning. A Green Party operative was assaulted there as well. Several teens with ties to far-right ideologies are suspected in both cases.
Statistics show rising violence against German politicians. In 2023, there were nearly 2,800 physical or verbal attacks, twice as many as in 2019, when a neo-Nazi assassination of conservative lawmaker Walter Lübcke stunned the country.
Last year’s violence included about 500 attacks on politicians from the far-right Alternative for Deutschland, or AFD, and more than 1,200 on members of the center-left Green Party.
Why now? The problem has deep roots, according to Jan Techau, a Berlin-based Europe expert at Eurasia Group. Establishment parties’ long-standing failure to address big issues like immigration, schooling, or the economy, he says, opened the way for more radical and violent forces on both the left and right. “What we see is an overall more charged, political atmosphere where this kind of violence becomes more legitimate.” (Gzero Signal, 5/9/2024)
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SEN GRAHAM PREDICTS TRUMP’S ACTIONS ON ILLEGALS
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned in a recent hearing that President Trump will not be lenient on illegal immigrants, including beneficiaries of the DACA program, unless they offer a “unique benefit” to America.
The US Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on Wednesday called “Dream Deferred: The Urgent Need to Protect Immigrant Youth” that emphasized the need for passing legal protections for noncitizens brought into the United States as children. “Dreamers” can secure work permits and avoid deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. However, DACA does not offer green cards and there is presently no path to citizenship through the initiative. During the hearing, Mr. Graham said that “if President Trump wins, I predict, I’m not going to speak for him, but unless you really truly have a unique benefit to the country or an unusual humanitarian situation, you’re going to be kicked out. There are millions of people here who have just been waved into the coutry,” he sad. (Naveen Athrappully, The Epoch Times, 5/10/2024)
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ANTI-WHITE ATTACK AVERTED
Federal prosecutors have charged a recently discharged US marine with making threats to attack white people in a mass shooting.
On Monday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey announced the arrest of Joshua Cobb, 23, on a single-count indictment of transmitting an interstate threat over the Internet. According to a complaint filed in the case, Mr. Cobb authored a social media post on Dec. 17, 2022, indicating his interest in inflicting mayhem “on the white community.”
The author of the Dec. 17, 2022, social media post states, “I want to cause mayhem on the white community. The reason I specifically want to target white people is because as a black male, they will NEVER understand my struggles.” (Ryan Morgan, The Epoch Times, 5/15/2024)
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POSSIBLE OTHER NATIONS MAY ENTER UKRAINE
As Russia’s current offensive gains momentum in Ukraine, politicians in Berlin are debating the merits of deploying European soldiers on Ukrainian territory. Last week, Lithuania announced that it was ready to send military trainers to the war zone without delay and was only waiting for a request from Kiev. Estonia has said that it is prepared to demonstrate military presence of its own on Ukrainian territory as part of a hoped-for “coalition of the willing.” Its focus would be on air defence capabilities. In Germany, the direct deployment of German troops is, with the exception of a few hardliners in Berlin, not publicly advocated. This is partly due to the important state elections upcoming next autumn. However, politicians from the CDU, FDP and Greens are backing intervention proposals that envisage the stationing of air defence systems on Polish and Romanian territory that can shoot down Russian offensive weapons over Ukraine. Warnings that this step would be tantamount to entering the war are being played down. At the same time, discussions are taking place on post-ceasefire scenarios, which might see the deployment of EU or NATO troops in Ukraine. (German Foreign Policy, 5/14/2024)
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AUTIISM – “Different diets can help with autism.”
When Matthew Hirning was diagnosed with autism, specialists told Terri Hirning that her 4-year-old son had a genetic condition, there was nothing she could do about it, and that he’d need to live in a group home as an adult because he’d never be independent. “I remember thinking, “I don’t know how, but that’s not going to be his story. That’s not an answer for what’s going on here,” Ms. Hirning told The Epoch Times.
She’d already noticed when he ate certain foods he’d have trouble sleeping, intense sensory meltdowns, and virtually no eye contact. He also suffered from limited vocabulary and chronic constipation – at times he wouldn’t even respond to his name.
Both intuition and critical reasoning pointed to diet as an easy entry point to symptom resolution.
“We had a dear friend who was an occupational therapist specializing in autism and she mentioned red dye and MSG [monosodium glutamate, a flavor enhancer] . . . I started to Just kind of dip my toe in the world that was biomedical intervention,” Ms. Hirning said.
The Hirnings learned that Matthew had a disrupted gut microbiome – the community of bacteria, viruses, and fungi that work synergistically to create metabolites that modulate neurotransmitters. That gut-brain connection can explain mood, behavior, and overall functionality changes that come through diet.
Testing also revealed Matthew had a range of food allergies. With diet modifications tracked in a food journal, Matthew reversed his symptoms of autism. (“Different diets can help with autism,” Amy Denney, The Epoch Times, 5/15/2024)
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BRIEFLY
Fifty years ago today, formal impeachment proceedings for President Richard Nixon began on Capitol Hill. Nixon resigned before the House of Representatives could actually vote to impeach him, which, at the time, had only occurred once before in US history. We’ve since upped the pace of impeachments (three since 1998!) — but the Senate has still never convicted and removed a president. (5/9/2024 Gzero)
I was once dined by a Soviet news commentator who told me how his bosses wanted to take over control of the UK bit by bit. They wanted to place their sympathizers, (whether comrades, ideologues, stooges or useful idiots) in three UK institutions. What were the revolutionary targets for the USSR? The Foreign Office, Parliament and the BBC. (David Heilbron Price from eurDemocracy, 5/9/2024)
While no Arab nation will accept Gazan refugees, Australia’s Labor Government has no such reservations, welcoming them into Australia with only hours of vetting. (Roger Cool, Politicom, Australia, 5/7/2024)
THE Albanese Government is trying to cover up rapid demographic changes for fear of a backlash. It fears people will start asking questions if they see their country changing so rapidly. (Henry Jom, Politicom, 5/7/2024)
Volodymyr Zelensky has cancelled all of his foreign trips, following a renewed Russian offensive in Kharkiv, in north-east Ukraine. (The Epoch Times, 5/15/2024)
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THINK ABOUT IT
The Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico was the victim of an attempted assassination earlier today (Wednesday, May 15).
The news this morning (Eastern time) made me think of this verse in the book of James. James reminds us, “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money. Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.’ (James 4:13-14)
The last few months have surely brought this to mind – that we can make plans but suddenly everything changes. October 7th was one of those days. Trips to Israel or somewhere else in the Middle East were suddenly “on hold.”
It was an assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 that led directly to World War I starting a month or so after the shots were fired.
This assassination is a part of the classic struggle between Russia and Europe. Robert Fico is the leader of the pro-Russian part of the government. Another struggle along the same lines is being fought in Georgia. It’s too easy to say Russia is behind everything.
At this point in time, we don’t know if Robert Fico will live or die. But in 1914, events kept moving fast until the world was in flames.
Right now, the United States has the feel of South Africa about it. Before 1994, South Africa was under the domination of one ethnic group; after 1994 it came under a different ethnic group. Everything changed.
Clearly, the US has a lot of ethnic problems. Perhaps Africa offers a solution.
There are over 50 African countries, each with its own president (or king), its own flag and national anthem. They each have their own laws, but many laws are broadly the same.
For example, the Republic of Liberia specifically says that citizenship may only be given to black people. Nearby Ghana recently extended Ghanaian citizenship to 100 African-Americans, but white people are not granted citizenship. Not even those who are married to Ghanaians – they are given a one-year residence visa, which must be renewed every year. You might think from this that they have really bad racial tensions, but quite the opposite is the case. Ghana is at peace. White people are welcome on short-term visas; if they offer skills that Ghana needs.
There is no diversity.
In the West, our emphasis is different. In 1971, Canada was the first country to officially adopt multiculturalism. Other nations in the western world quickly followed. Diversity became all the rage. In spite of the fact that it obviously doesn’t work, whenever there are riots or tensions between ethnic groups, leaders respond by saying that we need more diversity, not less. It’s also impossible to achieve full equality between ethnic groups.
People clearly want to live with people of their own culture.
It’s only natural.
Discrimination is not right. As the Bible says: “God is no respecter of persons.” (Acts 10:34) But living separately in different countries is perfectly acceptable. “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.” (Acts 17:26 NIV)
Enforcing diversity is only going to backfire. Separation is perfectly acceptable.
Africans have long been saying “Africa for the Africans.” So why not “Europe for the Europeans”? And America for the . . . ? (That’s a question for the Supreme Court!)
Over 200 years ago, the Back to Africa movement in the US was started by men who wanted to provide a home for freed slaves. White liberals also supported the movement. It led to the founding of Liberia with its capital Monrovia, named after US president Monroe.
One hundred years later, Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican political activist, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator, advocated a separation of the races, calling for “Africa for the Africans.”
“Failing to attract a following in Jamaica, Garvey went to the United States (1916) and soon established branches of the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) in Harlem and the other principal ghettos of the North. By 1919 the rising “Black Moses” claimed a following of about 2,000,000, though the exact number of association members was never clear. From the platform of the Association’s Liberty Hall in Harlem, he spoke of a “new Negro,” proud of being black. His newspaper, Negro World, told of the exploits of heroes of the race and of the splendors of African culture. He taught that blacks would be respected only when they were economically strong, and he preached an independent black economy within the framework of white capitalism. To forward these ends, he established the Negro Factories Corporation and the Black Star Line (1919), as well as a chain of restaurants and grocery stores, laundries, a hotel, and a printing press.” (Encyclopedia Britannica).
Now, we’ve moved on another century. With the granting of citizenship in Ghana to 100 African-Americans, are the ideas of Marcus Garvey and others returning?
Separation of the races is likely to be considered “racist” in today’s western World. But can it be racist when African governments themselves are embracing the idea?
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The Decline of the American World It is hard to escape the feeling that this is a uniquely humiliating moment for America. (The Atlantic (extracts), by Tom McTague)
As citizens of the world the United States created, we are accustomed to listening to those who loathe America, admire America, and fear America (sometimes all at the same time). But feeling pity for America? That one is new, even if the schadenfreude is painfully myopic. If it’s the aesthetic that matters, the U.S. today simply doesn’t look like the country that the rest of us should aspire to, envy, or replicate.
Even in previous moments of American vulnerability, Washington reigned supreme. Whatever moral or strategic challenge it faced, there was a sense that its political vibrancy matched its economic and military might, that its system and democratic culture were so deeply rooted that it could always regenerate itself. It was as if the very idea of America mattered, an engine driving it on whatever other glitches existed under the hood. Now, something appears to be changing. America seems mired, its very ability to rebound in question. A new power has emerged on the world stage to challenge American supremacy – China – with a weapon the Soviet Union never possessed: mutually assured economic destruction.
. . . To understand how this moment in U.S. history is being seen in the rest of the world, I spoke to more than a dozen senior diplomats, government officials, politicians, and academics from five major European countries, including advisers to two of its most powerful leaders, as well as to the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. From these conversations, most of which took place on the condition of anonymity to speak freely, a picture emerged in which America’s closest allies are looking on with a kind of stunned incomprehension, unsure of what will happen, what it means, and what they should do, largely bound together with angst and a shared sense, as one influential adviser told me, that America and the West are approaching something of a fin de siècle. “The moment is pregnant,” this adviser said. “We just don’t know what with.”
. . . America’s problem is that the rest of the world can see when it has fallen below its achievements.
. . . Dickens, like le Carré, captured America’s unique hold on the world and the fundamental reality that it can never live up to people’s imagination of what it is, good or bad. As it watches today, it recoils but cannot stop looking. In the United States, the world sees itself, but in an extreme form: more violent and free, rich and repressed, beautiful and ugly. Like Dickens, the world expects more of America. But as le Carré observed, it is also, largely, an aesthetic thing – we don’t like what we see when we look hard, because we see ourselves.
‘Faces of the conquerors’: Trump trip to Rushmore draws fire South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said in 2018 that he had once told her straight-faced it was his dream to have his face carved into the monument.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) 25 June 2020 — President Donald Trump’s plans to kick off Independence Day with a showy display at Mount Rushmore are drawing sharp criticism from Native Americans who view the monument as a desecration of land violently stolen from them and used to pay homage to leaders hostile to native people. Several groups led by Native American activists are planning protests for Trump’s July 3 visit, part of Trump’s “comeback” campaign for a nation reeling from sickness, unemployment and, recently, social unrest. The event is slated to include fighter jets thundering over the 79-year-old stone monument in South Dakota’s Black Hills and the first fireworks display at the site since 2009. But it comes amid a national reckoning over racism and a reconsideration of the symbolism of monuments around the globe. Many Native American activists say the Rushmore memorial is as reprehensible as the many Confederate monuments being toppled around the nation. “Mount Rushmore is a symbol of white supremacy, of structural racism that’s still alive and well in society today,” said Nick Tilsen, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and the president of a local activist organization called NDN Collective. “It’s an injustice to actively steal indigenous people’s land then carve the white faces of the conquerors who committed genocide.” More: (https://apnews.com/50f6bdb9e2fd2349bb39b99c1250b093)
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America’s top general warns that ‘divisiveness leads to defeat’ as Pentagon concerns over politicization grow America’s most senior general warned that “divisiveness leads to defeat” in a speech to Naval War College graduates on Wednesday. 24 June 2020, CNN
America’s most senior general warned that “divisiveness leads to defeat” in a speech to Naval War College graduates on Wednesday. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley counseled the audience to “eliminate anything that divides us.” While he also spoke of the traditional need to keep an eye on adversaries “during periods when we are weary from conflict or otherwise preoccupied,” and did not mention President Donald Trump by name, his comments appeared to address the broader backdrop of racial divisiveness in the country and concerns within the Pentagon about the military becoming politicized. Milley told the students, “We who wear the cloth of our nation must hold dear the principle of an apolitical military that is so deeply rooted in the very essence of our Republic.” (https://edition.cnn.co)
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Going home — Donald Trump’s baffling proposal to withdraw troops from Germany It makes little sense, and may never happen (The Economist (Europe), June 27, 2020 edition)
“It’s like having a stroke, and then a second one in the ambulance,” sighs Stefan Weiler, economic-development chief for Kaiserslautern, in south-west Germany. The city was already battling high debt and the effects of covid-19. Then came Donald Trump’s announcement that America would withdraw 9,500 of its 34,500 troops stationed in Germany. Some 50,000 American soldiers, civil staff and family members live in and around Kaiserslautern. The bases employ 2,700 locals and tens of thousands indirectly, from hotel-owners to parts suppliers. “They’re our neighbors, they rent our houses, our kids play football together,” says Ralf Hechner, mayor of nearby Ramstein-Miesenbach, which adjoins a vast American air base.
This local warmth found a national echo. Over decades dozens of American military bases – concentrated in Germany’s south, the area of post-war American occupation – have cemented the bond between the NATO allies. “I used to get a visit almost every year from the [premier] of Bavaria,” says Jim Townsend, the Pentagon’s former top official for Europe. “We were important to him, and he was important to us.”
Mr. Trump and surrogates like Richard Grenell, his boorish former ambassador in Berlin, have long threatened to prune America’s military presence in Germany. This time it looks credible. At a rally in Oklahoma on June 20th Mr. Trump justified his proposal with a familiar charge-sheet: a “delinquent” Germany free-rides on American protection, spending nugatory sums on defense while backing a Russian gas pipeline. “On top of it they treat us very badly on trade,” the president huffed. A day later Robert O’Brien, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, attempted to retrofit a strategic rationale onto his boss’s decision. The cold-war practice of massive army garrisons with families was “obsolete”, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal, because “modern warfare is increasingly expeditionary.” Troops were needed in Asia to counter China, he added.
This account “would not pass muster” at any military college, says Ben Hodges, who commanded American army forces in Europe until 2017. Although the reduction would represent just 15% of its troops in Europe, Germany is a crucial cog in America’s global military machine. The Pentagon’s European and African commands, which control every soldier, tank, warplane and warship in their domains, are based in Stuttgart. The army’s European headquarters are in Wiesbaden, and Germany hosts five of its seven European garrisons, including Grafenwöhr, its largest base outside America. Ramstein is a hub for directing drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen (to some German consternation). The Landstuhl military hospital has treated 95,000 American soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. “The amount of time and lives that that has saved is just incredible,” says Rachel Ellehuus, a former Pentagon official now at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank. A vast $990m replacement, nicknamed the “UFO” by locals, is being built nearby. At least 40% of American activity in Germany supports operations elsewhere, estimates Ms. Ellehuus.
A drawdown would follow a decades-long thinning of America’s presence. Over 10m of its troops were cycled through Germany from 1950 to 2000, with 250,000 deployed for much of that time. That had dwindled to under 70,000 by the turn of the millennium, and fell by half again between 2006 and 2018. Between 2005 and 2020 America’s overall footprint in Europe shrank by over a third. That leaves little fat to trim. American capabilities in Europe are spread so thinly across various functions that cutting any one of them by 30% would, in effect, eliminate it, warns General Hodges. American generals in Germany are said to be baffled by the proposal.
Yet as Heiko Maas, Germany’s foreign minister, has warned, the Atlantic is clearly widening. Tiffs over energy, trade, security and China are now threaded through the entire transatlantic relationship. Pro-American Germans say the sabre-rattling of Mr. Trump and Mr. Grenell makes it harder for them to make their case to a sceptical public. A recent Pew poll found that Germans now value their relations with China as strongly as those with the United States. Still, at least in Kaiserslautern, Americaphilia reigns supreme. “We don’t want the troops to leave,” says Mr. Weiler. “It’s an honor to have them here.”
Map of U.S. Military installations in Germany in 2020 Army & Air Force
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GERMANY ASSUMES EU LEADERSHIP
Goal: economic and political independence from China and the USA. 1 July 2020, German Foreign Policy
With its EU-Council Presidency, which begins today, the German government seeks “to set in motion unprecedented changes” in the European Union, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas announced. Not only should the EU countries’ economies – which are experiencing an unprecedented slump, due to the Covid-19 pandemic – be reinvigorated, it is also crucial “to consolidate the union permanently,” Maas declared. Berlin is thus reacting to the fact that single-handed national initiatives to combat the pandemic – particularly those of Germany – have severely damaged the EU’s reputation within the populations. According to a recent survey, 50 percent of respondents in Spain declared that their view of the EU had deteriorated, in Italy, it was even 58 percent. The German government is also pushing to strengthen the EU’s “sovereignty” and to reduce its dependency not only on China, but also on the USA: In the global great power rivalry, Europe must position itself as a “united entity,” Maas demands. (German Foreign Policy, 7/1/2020)
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America’s Mood Turns Grim: Just 17% say they are ‘proud’ when thinking about state of the U.S. (PEW Research, 30 June 2020)
With less than five months until the 2020 elections, Americans are deeply unhappy with the state of the nation.As the United States simultaneously struggles with a pandemic, an economic recession and protests about police violence and racial justice, the share of the public saying they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country has plummeted from 31% in April, during the early weeks of the coronavirus outbreak, to just 12% today. Anger and fear are widespread. Majorities of Democrats and Republicans say they feel both sentiments when thinking about the country, though these feelings are more prevalent among Democrats. And just 17% of Americans – including 25% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and 10% of Democrats and Democratic leaners – say they feel proud when thinking about the state of the country. However, nearly half of adults (46%) say they feel hopeful about the state of the country, although a 53% majority says they are not hopeful. In the presidential contest, Donald Trump faces a 10-percentage-point deficit in his race against Joe Biden: 54% of registered voters say if the election were held today, they would support Biden or lean toward voting for him, while 44% support Trump or lean toward supporting him.
. . . While white Americans’ opinion on this question is little changed overall, the views of white Democrats and white Republicans have moved in opposite directions. The share of white Democrats who say life will be better for future generations doubled from 12% in September to 24%. The share of white Republicans saying life will be better has decreased from 30% to 21%.
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HONG KONGERS OFFERED UK CITIZENSHIP
Britainoutlined a path to citizenship for almost 3m eligible Hong Kongresidents and their families in response to China’s imposition of a national-security law. Britain’s foreign secretary described the new regime as a “clear and serious violation” of the agreement under which Britain handed the territory back in 1997—although he admitted Britain could do little if China blocks any emigrants, as it has since promised to do. Meanwhile, America’s House of Representatives passed sanctions that penalise banks doing business with Chinese officials. (The Economist, 7/1/2020)
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IRANIAN LEADER SAYS US WILL COLLAPSE
Iranian Ayatollah Lotfollah Dezhkam, Supreme Leader Khamene’s Representative in the Fars province, said in a Friday, June 19, 2020 sermon that aired on Fars TV (Iran): “America cannot be the main decision-maker when it comes to strategic matters in the world . . . The sound of America being shattered, and of its collapse, is being heard all over the world. The shout of the Iranian nation [is] being heard from the mouths of the Americans themselves: Death to America!” The audience responded by chanting: “Death to America!” (MEMRI 6/25/2020)
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PANDEMIC TO AFFECT ELECTION DAY
The fear mongering of democrats.com laid bare: “In the midst of a deadly pandemic, no one should be forced to risk their life to exercise their Constitutional right to vote.”
The question should be how does votedem.org know that “the deadly pandemic” will still be among us on Nov. 3, 2020?
Could it be that devious Democrats intend to steal the election through pandemic fear mongering as a means to get the MAIL-IN VOTE, spearheaded by Michelle Obama’s ”non-partisan” ‘When We All Vote’ is the law of the land? (Canada Free Press, 6/28/2020)
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EUROPEAN ATTITUDES TO US DETERIORATING
A survey of opinion across nine EU countries has found Europeans’ perception of the US deteriorating because of the pandemic. More than 60% of respondents in Germany, France, Spain, Denmark and Portugal said they had lost trust in American leadership. According to the authors of a report accompanying the survey:
Many have been appalled by the [US’s] chaotic response to Covid-19; the lack of solidarity it showed with Europeans in the 12 March closure of its border to members of the Schengen area; and its lack of leadership in tackling the coronavirus crisis at the global level – or even engagement with the issue (beyond a war of words with the World Health Organization). (The Guardian 6/29/2020)
The EU has since banned American visitors from Europe because of Covid-19.
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PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS CONTINUES IN NIGERIA, GREECE
“The atrocities against Christians have gone unchecked and risen to alarming apogee with the country’s security forces and concerned political actors looking the other way or colluding with the Jihadists.” — The Nigerian Voice, May 14, 2020
Earlier this year, Christian Solidarity International issued a “Genocide Warning for Christians in Nigeria.”
“This [using a church as a personal toilet] is only the latest incident … [I]t has become extremely common for Greek Orthodox Churches to be vandalised and attacked by illegal immigrants on Lesvos . . . As a deeply religious society, these attacks on churches are shocking to the Greek people and calls to question whether these illegal immigrants seeking a new life in Europe are willing to integrate and conform to the norms and values of their new countries.” — Greek City Times, May 16, 2020.(Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone, 6/28/2020)
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GROWING INTOLERANCE AS RELIGIOUS STATUES UNDER THREAT “Historical churches are being defaced as some call for statues of Jesus to be torn down.
“’Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy,” wrote political activist Shaun King, who is an open supporter of Black Lives Matter.
“In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend in, guess where they went? EGYPT! Not Denmark,” King continued in a June 22 Twitter post. “Tear them down.”
“In Washington, vandals defaced the historical St. John’s Episcopal Church located just one block away from the White House.” (The Epoch Times, 6/2/2020).
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BIDEN TAKES RADICAL STANCE ON ABORTION
Planned Parenthood recently endorsed Joe Biden for president, saying this election was a matter of life and death. Ironic words from a group that makes millions off the deaths of America’s children. But it appears their endorsement of the Democrat was well-founded. Since becoming the party’s de facto nominee, Joe Biden has lurched further to the left— a move unusual in a general election.
Biden is increasingly alienating moderate voters even in his own party. Now, he promises a radical approach to abortion—if he enters the White House.
In a statement praising the Supreme Court for striking down a Louisiana law requiring doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital, 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden announced his support for abortion “under any circumstance,” staking out an extreme position on the issue. (National Insiders, 7/1/2020)
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BLM Protest in Colonial Williamsburg
On Tuesday morning, June 30, we were visiting Colonial Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Va. We were inside the Governor’s Palace when we spotted 6 police cruisers and heavy police presence, including the park’s security. I found it odd since the park has only been opened for a week and there were few visitors with only about ten percent of the buildings open for historical tours.
The atmosphere was hardly cheerful as everyone was wearing masks and visitors were required to wear masks inside and in outdoor exhibits such as the armory, the gardens, the weaver’s outdoor shop, the blacksmith, and the barrel maker. The temperatures in the 90s yesterday made wearing the masks quite unbearable. (Canada Free Press, 7/1/2020)
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TEN TAKE-AWAYS
Boris Johnson promises ‘new deal’ for Britain Boris Johnson will promise to “build back better” as he announces that he wants to use the coronavirus crisis “to tackle this country’s great unresolved challenges,” with a “new deal” bringing forward £5bn of spending on infrastructure projects. However, critics have scoffed at the plan, saying Johnson cannot be compared to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who created the approach of a “new deal.” (The Week, 6/30/2020) . “FDR’s Folly” by Jim Powell shows that FDR prolonged the Great Depression. Also: “The Forgotten Man” by Amity Schlaes.
2. China passes contentious national security law for Hong Kong China has passed a controversial national security law for Hong Kong. The new legislation was passed unanimously by the Chinese parliament’s top decision-making body. Critics fear the move will crush political freedoms and pave the way for Beijing to cement its control over the semi-autonomous territory, says The Guardian. (The Week, 6/30/2020)
3. Trump ‘bullied May’ and called Merkel ‘stupid’ President Donald Trump’s private calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin resemble conversations between “two guys in a steam bath,” according to an insider account. “Some of the things he said to Angela Merkel are just unbelievable: he called her ‘stupid,’” added the source, while Trump’s conversations with former prime minister Theresa May were described as “humiliating and bullying.” (The Week, 6/30/2020)
4. Revised data from Britain’s Office for National Statistics showed the greatest quarterly fall in the country’sGDP since 1979. Output dropped by 2.2% in the first quarter compared to the previous three months, revised down from a previous estimate of a 2% fall. The revision was driven by a decline in household consumption, which dropped 2.9% in the first quarter. (The Economist, 6/30/2020)
5. Police in Hong Kong fired water-cannon and pepper spray at pro-democracy protesters and made 30 arrests, the first under a new national-security law (see main stories). Britain, the EU and NATO expressed dismay after China’s parliament passed the law. Adopted by the territory’s government last night, it gives the government in Beijing and its security agencies the right to designate and prosecute political crimes in Hong Kong. Activists may face life imprisonment. One of the first people to be arrested under the new law had unfurled a banner proclaiming “Hong Kong Independence.” (The Economist, 7/1/2020)
6. The EU’s 27 member states agreed on 14 “safe” countries from which non-essential travel will be permitted, including Australia, Canada and Japan. China will also be included, as long as travelers from the EU are allowed to go to China in return. America, Brazil and Russia, which are suffering big surges of infections, are not on the list. (The Economist, 7/1/2020)
7. US snaps up global supply of Covid-19 drug remdesivir The US has bought up virtually all the world’s stocks of remdesivir, one of the two drugs proven to work against Covid-19. “They’ve got access to most of the drug supply [of remdesivir], so there’s nothing for Europe,” said Dr Andrew Hill, senior visiting research fellow at Liverpool University. Experts now fear what the US would do if a vaccine became available.
8. Nearly 50% of black UK households live in poverty
Nearly half of black UK households are living in poverty, an independent study has revealed. Black and minority ethnic households in the UK are more than twice as likely to live in poverty as their white counterparts, leaving them disproportionately exposed to job losses and pay cuts caused by the coronavirus pandemic, says the Social Metrics Commission.
9. VATICAN RAID – Vatican police on Tuesday raided the office that manages St. Peter’s Basilica, seizing documents and electronic equipment as part of an investigation into possible corruption in procurement practices. The extraordinary raid comes a month after the Vatican published new procurement rules intended to prevent corruption and cut costs. The Holy See Press Office said Tuesday that police had acted under orders from Vatican prosecutors in response to a report by the city state’s auditor general. (WSJ, 6/30/2020)
10. The Cameroonian waging war against a French war hero’s statue by Dickens Olewe, BBC News, 1 July 2020
Cameroonian activist Andre Blaise Essama has been on a decades-long mission to purge his country of colonial-era symbols, long before the issue came to international prominence in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests. His main target has been French World War Two hero Gen Philippe Leclerc in the country’s biggest city, Douala. “I have decapitated Leclerc’s head seven times and toppled the statue at least 20 times,” Mr. Essama told the BBC. “I use my bare hands … but I make an incantation to the ancestors first,” he said. (BBC 7/1/2020) (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53148608)
"Once in a while you will stumble upon the truth but most of us manage to pick ourselves up and hurry along as if nothing had happened." — Sir Winston Churchill
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